How to Make a Radar Chart in Excel to Compare Scores

A radar chart in Excel compares scores across several categories at once: each category gets its own spoke from the centre, and each person or product becomes a shape. It is a popular way to show candidate skills, product ratings or survey scores by topic. This guide shows how to set up the data, insert the chart, fix the scale so the shapes are fair, and when a plain bar chart would serve your readers better.

What is a radar chart?#

A radar chart, also called a spider or web chart, has one axis per category arranged in a circle like the spokes of a wheel. Each value is plotted on its spoke, distance from the centre showing size, and the points are joined into a closed shape.

Excel offers three radar types:

Radar charts suit a few items measured on the same scale across roughly five to eight categories. They give a quick sense of strengths and gaps: a candidate who is strong technically but weaker in leadership shows a shape pulled towards one side.

When to use a radar chart (and when not to)#

Use a radar chart when the overall profile matters more than exact values. Typical examples:

• Interview or assessment scores across skills, on a 1–5 scale
• Product comparisons across features, each rated out of 10
• Survey results by topic, such as satisfaction with price, speed and support

Choose another chart when:

• The categories use different scales. Revenue in dollars and satisfaction out of 5 can't share spokes.
• Readers need exact comparisons. A clustered bar chart shows which score is higher much more clearly.
• You have many series. Three shapes is about the limit before the chart turns into a tangle.
• The categories are time periods. Months belong on a line chart, not around a circle.

The guide to making charts in Excel compares all the main chart types.

How to set up the data#

A radar chart needs the categories in the first column and one column of scores for each series. Use one scale for every score and give every column a header, because Excel uses the headers in the legend.

Each category becomes a spoke, and each person becomes a shape. Leave out total or average rows; they would become a spoke too.

Build the scores with AVERAGE#

Scores often come from several raters, so each cell above is an average. If three interviewers scored Priya's Excel skill 5, 4 and 4.5, the score is:

=AVERAGE(B2:D2)

The result is 4.5. Fill it down to get one score per skill. The AVERAGE function guide covers how AVERAGE skips blank cells, which matters if one rater left a score empty. If your ratings are in a long list with one row per rating, AVERAGEIFS builds the table instead; see how to average by group.

How to make a radar chart in Excel step by step#

With the table in place, inserting the chart takes four steps:

1. Select the data, including the headers: A1:C7.
2. On Windows, go to Insert and click Insert Waterfall, Funnel, Stock, Surface, or Radar Chart. On a Mac, open the Insert tab and look for Radar among the other chart types; the button name varies between versions.
3. Choose Radar with Markers.
4. Click the chart title and type a clear one, such as "Interview scores by skill (1–5)".

If you can't find the button, Insert > Recommended Charts > All Charts > Radar lists every radar type. If Excel draws a shape for each skill instead of each person, click the chart and choose Chart Design > Switch Row/Column.

How to fix the scale so the chart is fair#

The most important step is to set the axis yourself. Excel picks the scale automatically from your data, and it might start at 2 instead of 0. A score of 2.5 then sits at the very centre, which makes a modest gap look huge.

1. Right-click the numbers on the vertical spoke and choose Format Axis.
2. Under Bounds, set Minimum to 0 and Maximum to 5 (or your scale's top).
3. Set the Major unit to 1 so the rings sit at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Use the same bounds on every radar chart you compare. Two charts with different scales can't be compared by eye.

Make overlapping shapes readable#

For Filled Radar, right-click each series, choose Format Data Series, and under Fill pick Solid fill with about 50% Transparency. Pick two clearly different colours. Keep the legend, or label each shape, so readers know which is which.

How to read a radar chart without being misled#

Radar charts are easy to over-read. Keep these limits in mind when you present one:

• Order changes the shape. Put Leadership next to Teamwork instead of Domain knowledge and the same scores draw a different shape. Group related categories together, and keep the order the same on every chart.
• Area is not a score. A bigger shape looks better, but the area depends on the order of the spokes. Compare the overall level with a number instead. Here, Priya's average across all six skills is 3.58 and Tom's is 3.50, almost the same, even though their shapes look very different.
• Exact values are hard to read. Add data labels sparingly, or show the table next to the chart.

That last point is why radar charts work best as a quick visual, with the numbers alongside. The survey results guide shows how to build the summary tables that radar charts often come from.

Practise it#

Every good radar chart starts with a clean table of averages. Try the exercise on this page, then practise AVERAGE, MIN and MAX in a live spreadsheet and build a full summary table in the pivot-style summary lesson. Each lesson checks your formula the moment you press Enter.